By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 11 July 2006
A universal mystical experience with life-changing effects can be produced
by the hallucinogen contained in magic mushrooms, scientists claim today.

Forty years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism,
urged his hippie followers to "tune in, turn on, and drop out", researchers
at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland, have for the first
time demonstrated that mystical experiences can be produced safely in the
laboratory. They say that there is no difference between drug-induced mystical
experiences and the spontaneous religious ones that believers have reported
for centuries. They are "descriptively identical".

And they argue that the potential of the hallucinogenic drugs, ignored
for decades because of their links with illicit drug use in the 1960s,
must be explored to develop new treatments for depression, drug addiction
and the treatment of intolerable pain.

Anticipating criticism from church leaders, they say they are not interested
in the "Does God exist?" debate. "This work can't and won't go there."

Interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs is growing around
the world. In the UK, the Royal College of Psychiatrists debated their
use at a conference in March for the first time in 30 years. A conference
held in Basel, Switzerland, last January reviewed the growing psychedelic
psychiatry movement.

The drug psilocybin is the active ingredient of magic mushrooms which
grow wild in Wales and were openly sold in London markets until a change
in the law last year.

For the US study, 30 middle-aged volunteers who had religious or spiritual
interests attended two eight-hour drug sessions, two months apart, receiving
psilocybin in one session and a non-hallucinogenic stimulant, Ritalin,
in the other. They were not told which drug was which.

One third described the experience with psilocybin as the single most
spiritually significant of their lifetimes and two thirds rated it among
their five most meaningful experiences.

In more than 60 per cent of cases the experience qualified as a "full
mystical experience" based on established psychological scales, the researchers
say. Some likened it to the importance of the birth of their first child
or the death of a parent.

The effects persisted for at least two months. Eighty per cent of the
volunteers reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life
satisfaction. Relatives, friends and colleagues confirmed the changes.

The study is one of the first in the new discipline of "neurotheology"
- the neurology of religious experience. The researchers, who report their
findings in the online journal Psychopharmacology, say that their aim is
to explore the possible benefits drugs like psilocybin can bring. Professor
Roland Griffiths of the department of neuroscience and psychiatry at Johns
Hopkins, said: "As a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research
with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time.

"I had a healthy scepticism going into this. [But] under defined conditions,
with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what's
called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes
in a person. It is an early step in what we hope will be a large body of
scientific work that will ultimately help people."

A third of the volunteers became frightened during the drug sessions
with some reporting feelings of paranoia. The researchers say psilocybin
is not toxic or addictive, unlike alcohol and cocaine, but that volunteers
must be accompanied throughout the experience by people who can help them
through it.

A universal mystical experience with life-changing effects can be produced
by the hallucinogen contained in magic mushrooms, scientists claim today.

Forty years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism,
urged his hippie followers to "tune in, turn on, and drop out", researchers
at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland, have for the first
time demonstrated that mystical experiences can be produced safely in the
laboratory. They say that there is no difference between drug-induced mystical
experiences and the spontaneous religious ones that believers have reported
for centuries. They are "descriptively identical".

And they argue that the potential of the hallucinogenic drugs, ignored
for decades because of their links with illicit drug use in the 1960s,
must be explored to develop new treatments for depression, drug addiction
and the treatment of intolerable pain.

Anticipating criticism from church leaders, they say they are not interested
in the "Does God exist?" debate. "This work can't and won't go there."

Interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs is growing around
the world. In the UK, the Royal College of Psychiatrists debated their
use at a conference in March for the first time in 30 years. A conference
held in Basel, Switzerland, last January reviewed the growing psychedelic
psychiatry movement.

The drug psilocybin is the active ingredient of magic mushrooms which
grow wild in Wales and were openly sold in London markets until a change
in the law last year.

For the US study, 30 middle-aged volunteers who had religious or spiritual
interests attended two eight-hour drug sessions, two months apart, receiving
psilocybin in one session and a non-hallucinogenic stimulant, Ritalin,
in the other. They were not told which drug was which.
One third described the experience with psilocybin as the single most
spiritually significant of their lifetimes and two thirds rated it among
their five most meaningful experiences.

In more than 60 per cent of cases the experience qualified as a "full
mystical experience" based on established psychological scales, the researchers
say. Some likened it to the importance of the birth of their first child
or the death of a parent.

The effects persisted for at least two months. Eighty per cent of the
volunteers reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life
satisfaction. Relatives, friends and colleagues confirmed the changes.

The study is one of the first in the new discipline of "neurotheology"
- the neurology of religious experience. The researchers, who report their
findings in the online journal Psychopharmacology, say that their aim is
to explore the possible benefits drugs like psilocybin can bring. Professor
Roland Griffiths of the department of neuroscience and psychiatry at Johns
Hopkins, said: "As a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research
with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time.

"I had a healthy scepticism going into this. [But] under defined conditions,
with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what's
called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes
in a person. It is an early step in what we hope will be a large body of
scientific work that will ultimately help people."

A third of the volunteers became frightened during the drug sessions
with some reporting feelings of paranoia. The researchers say psilocybin
is not toxic or addictive, unlike alcohol and cocaine, but that volunteers
must be accompanied throughout the experience by people who can help them
through it.

TUESDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- Volunteers who tried the hallucinogenic
ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms during a controlled study funded by
the U.S. government had "mystical" experiences, and many of them still
felt unusually happy months later.

The aims of the Johns Hopkins researchers were simple: to explore the
neurological mechanisms and effects of the compound, as well as its potential
as a therapeutic agent.

Although psilocybin -- the hallucinogenic agent in the Psilocybe family
of mushrooms -- first gained notoriety more than 40 years ago, it has rarely
been studied because of the controversy surrounding its use.

This latest finding, which sprang from a rigorously designed trial,
moves the hallucinogen's effect closer to the hazy border separating hard
science and religious mysticism.

"More than 60 percent of the volunteers reported effects of their psilocybin
session that met the criteria for a 'full mystical experience' as measured
by well-established psychological scales," said lead researcher Roland
Griffiths, a professor in the departments of neuroscience, psychiatry and
behavioral biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

What's more, most of the 36 adult participants -- none of whom had taken
psilocybin before -- counted their experience while under the influence
of the drug as "among the most meaningful and spiritually significant experiences
of their lives," Griffiths said. Most said they became better, kinder,
happier people in the weeks after the psilocybin session -- a fact corroborated
by family and friends.

The researchers also noted no permanent brain damage or negative long-term
effects stemming from use of psilocybin.

But the study, published in the July 11 online edition of Psychopharmacology,
did not neglect the hallucinogen's "dark side."

Even though the candidates for the landmark study were carefully screened
to reduce their vulnerability and closely monitored during the trial, "We
still had 30 percent of them reporting periods of very significant fear
or anxiety which could easily escalate into panic and dangerous behavior
if this were given in any other kind of circumstances," Griffiths said.

"We simply don't know what causes a 'bad trip,' " he added, "and we
can't forecast who'll have a difficult time and who won't."

Still, many experts hailed the research, which was funded by the U.S.
National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Council on Spiritual Practices,
as long overdue.

No less than Dr. Herbert Kleber -- former deputy director of the White
House's Office of National Drug Control Policy under former President George
H.W. Bush -- said these types of studies "could shed light on various kinds
of brain activity and lead to therapeutic uses for these categories of
drugs." He authored a commentary on the Hopkins study.

"Over time, with appropriate research, maybe we can figure out ways
to decrease [illicit drugs'] bad effects," while retaining those effects
beneficial to medical science, Kleber said.

Scientific research into the effects of illegal, Schedule 1 drugs such
as psilocybin are allowed by federal law. But the stigma surrounding their
use has kept this type of research to a minimum. The taboo surrounding
drugs such as psilocybin "has some wisdom to it," Griffiths said, but "it's
unfortunate that as a culture we so demonized these drugs that we stopped
doing research on them."

Psilocybin appears to work primarily on the brain's serotonin receptors
to alter states of consciousness. In their study, the Baltimore team sought
to determine the exact nature of psilocybin's effects on humans, under
strictly controlled conditions.

To do so, they sought volunteers with no prior history of drug abuse
or mental illness who also had a strong interest in spirituality, since
the drug was reputed to trigger mystical states.

The study included 36 college-educated participants averaging 46 years
of age. It was also randomized and double-blinded, meaning that half of
the participants received psilocybin, while the other half received a non-hallucinogenic
stimulant, methylphenidate (Ritalin), but neither researchers nor the participants
knew who got which drug in any given session. Each volunteer was brought
in for two or three sessions in a "crossover" design that guaranteed that
each participant used psilocybin at least once.

During each eight-hour encounter, participants were carefully watched
over in the lab by two trained monitors. The volunteers were instructed
by the researchers to "close their eyes and direct their attention inward."

According to the Baltimore team, nearly two-thirds of the volunteers
said they achieved a "mystical experience" with "substantial personal meaning."
One-third rated the psilocybin experience as "the single most spiritually
significant experience of his or her life," and another 38 percent placed
the experience among their "top five" most spiritually significant moments.

Most also said they became better, gentler people in the following two
months. "We don't think that's delusional, because we also interviewed
family members and friends by telephone, and they confirmed these kinds
of claims," Griffiths said.

So, is this "God in a pill"? Griffiths said answering questions of religion
or spirituality far exceeds the scope of studies like these.

"We know that there were brain changes that corresponded to a primary
mystical experience," he said. "But that finding -- as precise as it may
get -- will in no way inform us about the metaphysical question of the
existence of a higher power."

He likened scientific attempts to seek God in the human brain to experiments
where scientists watch the neurological activity of people eating ice cream.

"You could define exactly what brain areas lit up and how they interplay,
but that shouldn't be used as an argument that chocolate ice cream does
or doesn't exist," Griffiths said.

Another expert said the study should give insights into human consciousness.

"We may gain a better understanding of how we biologically react to
a spiritual state," said Dr. John Halpern, associate director for substance
abuse research at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Halpern, who's conducted his own research on the sacramental use of
the hallucinogenic drug peyote by Native Americans, said he's encouraged
that the Hopkins trial was organized in the first place. "This study, by
some of the top-tier people in the country, shows that it's possible for
us to re-look at these substances and evaluate them safely in a research
setting," he said.

For his part, former deputy drug czar Kleber stressed that agents such
as psilocybin "carry a high likelihood of misuse as well as good use."

Griffiths agreed the study should not been seen as encouragement for
casual experimentation.

"I think it would be awful if this research prompted people to use the
drug under recreational conditions," he said, "because we really don't
know that there aren't personality types or conditions under which you
could take things like that and develop persisting harm."

NEW YORK — In 2002, at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, a business
consultant named Dede Osborn took a psychedelic drug as part of a research
project.

She felt like she was taking off. She saw colors. Then it felt like
her heart was ripping open.

But she called the experience joyful as well as painful, and says that
it has helped her to this day.

"I feel more centered in who I am and what I'm doing," said Osborn,
now 66, of Providence, R.I. "I don't seem to have those self-doubts like
I used to have. I feel much more grounded (and feel that) we are all connected."

Scientists reported Tuesday that when they surveyed volunteers 14 months
after they took the drug, most said they were still feeling and behaving
better because of the experience.

Two-thirds of them also said the drug had produced one of the five most
spiritually significant experiences they'd ever had.

The drug, psilocybin, is found in so-called "magic mushrooms." It's
illegal, but it has been used in religious ceremonies for centuries.

The study involved 36 men and women during an eight-hour lab visit.
It's one of the few such studies of a hallucinogen in the past 40 years,
since research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse
of such drugs in the 1960s.

The project made headlines in 2006 when researchers published their
report on how the volunteers felt just two months after taking the drug.
The new study followed them up a year after that.

Experts emphasize that people should not try psilocybin on their own
because it could be harmful. Even in the controlled setting of the laboratory,
nearly a third of participants felt significant fear under the effects
of the drug. Without proper supervision, someone could be harmed, researchers
said.

Osborn, in a telephone interview, recalled a powerful feeling of being
out of control during her lab experience. "It was ... like taking off,
I'm being lifted up," she said. Then came "brilliant colors and beautiful
patterns, just stunningly gorgeous, more intense than normal reality."

And then, the sensation that her heart was tearing open.

"It would come in waves," she recalled. "I found myself doing Lamaze-type
breathing as the pain came on."

Yet "it was a joyful, ecstatic thing at the same time, like the joy
of being alive," she said. She compared it to birthing pains. "There was
this sense of relief and joy and ecstasy when my heart was opened."

With further research, psilocybin (pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin) may prove
useful in helping to treat alcoholism and drug dependence, and in aiding
seriously ill patients as they deal with psychological distress, said study
lead author Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins.

Griffiths also said that despite the spiritual characteristics reported
for the drug experiences, the study says nothing about whether God exists.

"Is this God in a pill? Absolutely not," he said.

The experiment was funded in part by the National Institute on Drug
Abuse. The results were published online Tuesday by the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Fourteen months after taking the drug, 64 percent of the volunteers
said they still felt at least a moderate increase in well-being or life
satisfaction, in terms of things like feeling more creative, self-confident,
flexible and optimistic. And 61 percent reported at least a moderate behavior
change in what they considered positive ways.

That second question didn't ask for details, but elsewhere the questionnaire
answers indicated lasting gains in traits like being more sensitive, tolerant,
loving and compassionate.

Researchers didn't try to corroborate what the participants said about
their own behavior. But in the earlier analysis at two months after the
drug was given, researchers said family and friends backed up what those
in the study said about behavior changes. Griffiths said he has no reason
to doubt the answers at 14 months.

Dr. Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Harbor-UCLA
Medical Center, called the new work an important follow-up to the first
study.

He said it is helping to reopen formal study of psychedelic drugs. Grob
is on the board of the Heffter Research Institute, which promotes studies
of psychedelic substances and helped pay for the new work.

Clinical trials test potential of hallucinogenic
drugs to help patients with terminal illnesses

· First test of 'psychedelic psychotherapy' since 70s
· Researchers hope effects will improve quality of life

Magic mushrooms, which contain the psychedelic chemical psilocybin.
Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP
Link
to this audioJames Randerson discusses the use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD
to treat ailments from depression to cluster headaches

Scientists are exploring the use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD to
treat a range of ailments from depression to cluster headaches and obsessive
compulsive disorder.

The first clinical trial using LSD since the 1970s began in Switzerland
in June. It aims to use "psychedelic psychotherapy" to help patients with
terminal illnesses come to terms with their imminent mortality and so improve
their quality of life.

Another psychedelic substance, psilocybin - the active ingredient in
magic mushrooms, has shown promising results in trials for treating symptoms
of terminal cancer patients. And researchers are using MDMA (ecstasy) as
an experimental treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the Swiss trial eight subjects will receive a dose of 200 microgrammes
of LSD. This is enough to induce a powerful psychedelic experience and
is comparable to what would be found in an "acid tab" bought from a street
drug dealer. A further four subjects will receive a dose of 20 microgrammes.
Every participant will know they have received some LSD, but neither the
subjects nor the researchers observing them will know for certain who received
the full dose. During the course of therapy researchers will assess the
patients' anxiety levels, quality of life and pain levels.

Before hallucinogenic drugs became popular with the counter culture,
they were at the forefront of brain science. They were used to help scientists
understand the nature of consciousness and how the brain works and as treatments
for a range of conditions including alcohol dependence.

Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre,
is in the vanguard of the resurgence of scientific interest in psychedelics,
having recently completed a trial that used psilocybin to help patients
with terminal cancer come to terms with their illness. "I think there's
a perception these compounds hold untapped potential to help us understand
the human mind," he said.

The way hallucinogens such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), psilocybin
and mescaline (the active ingredient in the peyote cactus) act on the brain
is reasonably well understood by scientists. The drugs stick to chemical
receptors on nerve cells that normally bind the neurotransmitter serotonin,
which affects a broad range of brain activities. But how this leads to
the profoundly altered states of consciousness, perception and mood that
typically accompany a "trip" is not known.

Prof Roland Griffiths at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore
Maryland recently published a study of 36 healthy volunteers who were given
psilocybin and then observed in the lab. The participants' ages ranged
from 24 to 64 and none had taken hallucinogens before. When the group were
interviewed again 14 months later 58% said they rated the experience as
being among the five most personally meaningful of their lives, 67% said
it was in their top five spiritual experiences, and 64% said it had increased
their well-being or life satisfaction.

"The working hypothesis is that if psilocybin or LSD can occasion these
experiences of great personal meaning and spiritual significance ... then
it would allow [patients with terminal illnesses] hopefully to face their
own demise completely differently - to restructure some of the psychological
angst that so often occurs concurrently with severe disease," said Griffiths.
So by expanding their consciousness during a session on the drug, the patient
is able to comprehend their thoughts and feelings from a new perspective.
This can lead to a release of negative emotions that leaves them in a much
more positive state of mind.

Twelve patients with terminal cancer have already helped Grob to test
this idea and, although the research is not yet published, anecdotal reports
from some subjects are encouraging. Pamela Sakuda (see below) was diagnosed
with stage 4 colorectal cancer in December 2002. Her husband, Norbert Litzinger,
said the psilocybin treatment transformed her outlook.

"Pamela had lost hope. She wasn't able to make plans for the future.
She wasn't able to engage the day as if she had a future left," he said.
Her "epiphany" during the treatment was the realisation that her fear about
the disease was destroying the remaining time she had left, he said.

Despite fears that psychedelic drugs can induce psychosis, they are
comparatively safe when administered with the proper precautions and with
trained medical professionals present, according to a manual for studying
their effects, which was recently published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

They do have a powerful effect on a person's perception and consciousness
and cannot be considered "safe", but they are almost entirely nontoxic,
they virtually never lead to addiction and they only rarely lead to long-lasting
psychosis (usually in people with a family history of mental illness).
The main danger is that the person taking the drug injures him or herself
while in a mind-altered state, for example because they think they can
fly. The manual states, for example, that, "investigators need to be confident
that the volunteer could not exit the window if in a delusional state".
Griffiths does not advocate recreational use.

Since the 1970s, scientific research into the effects hallucinogenic
drugs have on the brain and their potential benefits has become a pariah
field for any scientist who wanted to keep their reputation - and funding
- intact. The psychologist Timothy Leary was the most famous advocate of
the scientific and recreational use of psychedelic drugs. He conducted
experiments at Harvard that were widely criticised and he was accused of
faking data.

"The way I view it is we experienced some kind of broad cultural trauma
back in the 60s and these drugs became demonised in that context," said
Griffiths. "As a culture we just decided clinical research shouldn't be
done with this class of compounds," he said. "This was partly the federal
regulatory authorities, it was partly the funding agencies and it was partly
the academics themselves ... Leary had so discredited a scientific approach
to studying these compounds that anyone who expressed an interest in doing
so was automatically discredited."

Dr Rick Doblin is president of the Multidisciplinary Association for
Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in California, a nonprofit organisation which
funds clinical studies into psychedelic drugs, including the Swiss LSD
trial. "These drugs, these experiences are not for the mystic who wants
to sit on the mountain top and meditate. They are not for the counter-culture
rebel. They are for everybody," he said.
Case study

Edited extract from an interview Pamela Sakuda did for researchers on
the psilocybin experience

"As the session began, and as it built up, I felt this lump of emotions
welling up and firming up almost like an entity. I started to cry a little.
Then it started to dissipate and I started to look at it differently and
I think that is the beauty of being able to expand your consciousness.
I don't think the drug is the cause of these things. I think it is a catalyst
that allows you to release your own thoughts and feelings from some place
that you have bound them to very tightly. I began to realise that all of
this negative fear and the guilt was such a hindrance to making the most
of and enjoying the healthy time that I'm having - however long it may
be. I was not utilising it to the best and enjoying my life because I was
so afraid of what wasn't there yet. These substances occur in our natural
world and people have been using them for thousands of years to treat physical
illness, to treat social and behavioural problems."